Black Friday
by Lanie L Sullivan
Summary: This is the sixth story in the Francine/Beaman series: Set during "A Matter of Choice." A fight between Lee and Beaman, her own fight with her new love interest, and the the return of her old one...How will Francine handle it all and what choices will she make?
1. Gal Friday

Francine entered the Agency's building with a spring in her step, excited by the fact that she had another date with Beaman tonight and that he and Lee seemed to be working well together on the Brody investigation. She couldn't help the bit of a self-satisfied smile that she'd thought of it since it really did solve two problems at once, getting Lee the help he needed and keeping Amanda out of it since she still hadn't been full cleared for field duty.

Her smile soon faded, however, when she walked into the bullpen and approached her desk outside Billy's office and could see the two men in question having a blazing screaming match in front of their section chief. She hurriedly entered the room, not bothering to knock and was regaled by the shouting between the two and gave Billy a questioning look who responded with a slight nod to her and held up one finger to indicate for her to just wait.

"Billy, you gotta' find another trainer for Amanda," Lee demanded as he jabbed a finger at the stack of files on Billy's desk. "I don't want her anywhere near him again when he's clearly incompetent!"

"Incompetent?" Beaman gaped at Lee incredulously. "Then tell me why I was the one to suggest getting in touch with the rest of your family to make sure they got out of the line of fire? You sure as hell didn't think of it."

"That has nothing to do with this. This is about Amanda! I told you to look out for her, didn't I?" Lee shouted at the trainer.

"She's an adult, Stetson! She made her own choice and insisted that she was ready and that she could handle it! I believed she could too, especially considering all the hours she's logged with her physical therapist."

"Listen, both of you," Billy tried to interject, but neither was paying attention.

"Yeah? Well, if she could handle it so well, then explain to me why she spent half the night in the infirmary and then got sent home with a dislocated shoulder after you put her through that makeup test, huh?"

"Please! That's a minor injury and she'll be healed in no time! I've seen a lot worse injuries come out of my training classes! Besides, she wouldn't have needed a makeup test if _you_ hadn't pulled her out of class to begin with!"

Lee ignored Beaman's jibe and fired back, "If you're letting so many of your trainees get injured, then maybe you're just not cut out to be a trainer!"

"Or maybe you should keep a closer eye on your _protégée_ and make sure she's up for an assignment before you let her just sign up for any and all training classes!"

"Okay, you two, knock it off," Billy commanded in a loud bellow to get their attention. Once they were both looking at him instead of glowering at each other, he barked, "Sit down. Both of you." When they complied, he went on, "Now, I have Amanda's report from the infirmary right here, and Beaman's right, Lee, it _is_ a minor injury. As for her trying this exercise before she was ready, I don't believe either of you are to blame. I think we both know that neither of you has any real control when it comes to Amanda. She's very good at the job, but we all know how stubborn she can be, not to mention how anxious she is to finish her training and to get back to full active-duty status."

Lee snorted, but Francine jumped in with a calmer tone, "I have to agree with Billy on this one. Look at how many times she wrote letters begging for more training and now that Dr. Smyth approved that training and in fact, _insisted_ on it, she's thrown herself into every class she could, going all the way back to September."

"But that was before she nearly died," Lee argued. "You weren't there, Francine. You don't know how bad it really was. I was and I watched her flat-line and watched the doctors struggle to bring her back. I can't...no, I _won't_ let anything else happen to her on my watch." He shot a murderous look at Beaman.

"Look, it was just an accident," Beaman tried to defend himself. "She was running through the obstacle course and when she got to the climbing part, she just lost her grip. She even said it herself, that despite all her PT, she still doesn't quite have the upper arm strength that she did before her shooting."

"Then why did you let her do it?" Francine questioned. "If she told you that, why did you even let her attempt it?"

"Because she didn't tell me that until after she fell and hurt herself."

"Well, maybe you should have had the sense to check out her medical files before you put her on that course," Lee snorted.

"Lee has a point," Francine commented.

"You think I didn't?" He gaped at Francine with a scowl. "I talked to her personal doctor, the doctors here who've been keeping an eye on her progress, her personal physical therapist and the one here who's been working with her on Agency-related tasks and they _all_ said she's making good progress since her shooting." He nodded to Billy. "You've got all that right there too, Billy."

Lee let out a sigh. "Okay, maybe you did your due diligence on that front," he conceded. "But you yourself said the other night that you were concerned about her and you let her go ahead anyway."

"I was going by the information I had and every bit of it suggested that she was up for the challenge."

"But haven't you ever just gone with your gut on something instead of relying on facts and figures? I know you're a smart guy, Beaman, but sometimes common sense comes in a lot more handy than what you can read and measure. Maybe that's why you've never been given any field time before now. You think too damn much instead of just reacting."

"Maybe you don't think enough, _Scarecrow!"_ Beaman spat back at him.

"Now, hold on," Francine interjected. "There's no need to resort to insults here. If you two can't get along and put your differences aside, maybe I was wrong to suggest that the two of you work together on this Brody thing."

Again, Beaman frowned at her. "What are you saying?" He couldn't believe that she was taking Stetson's side in all this when he himself hadn't done anything wrong.

"Fine by me," Lee crowed triumphantly. "If I can't trust him to look after my partner in his classes, how can I trust him in the field?"

"That's not what I was saying. What I meant was-" Francine tried to explain, but was cut off by Beaman abruptly rising from his seat and shoving his way past her.

"Fine! I'm done with him anyway!" He flung the door open and stormed across the bullpen at top speed.

"Efraim, wait!" she called after him and hurried to try to catch up to him. For once, she was grateful for the slowness of the Agency's elevators because he'd had to pause to wait on the internal elevator that would take him back to his office. "Efraim..." she breathed his name as she tried to catch her breath.

"What?" he snapped.

"Why'd you take off like that without letting me finish what I had to say?"

"I think you said enough," he huffed as the elevator doors finally opened and he stepped inside. "Enough to know that you're taking your old lover's side."

She quickly stepped in behind him and fired back, "Okay, first of all, I wasn't taking sides. Second, none of anything I said in Billy's office has a damn thing to do with the fact that I once had a personal involvement with Lee. Third, when I walked into that office, you two looked like you were ready to tear each other limb from limb so it's clear to me that you can't work together."

"Right," he snorted. "So, you're just forgetting your promise to me to use your influence to help me clock some more field time."

"I never said that," she protested. "And you need to stop putting words in my mouth and assuming things that aren't true. Just because this thing with Lee didn't work out doesn't mean there aren't other things you _can_ do. There's plenty of work to be done around this place and if anyone knows that, it's me, since I see everything that comes out of Billy's office."

"Right, like what? Some boring Spring Cleaning detail. No thanks."

"What the hell do you want from me? I went out on a limb for you, both with Billy and with Lee and it didn't work out, but that's not my fault."

"Are you saying it's mine?" he demanded as the doors opened and he stomped down the hall toward his office.

Her eyes flared in anger and she followed him into his office and slammed the door behind her. "Again, STOP putting words in my mouth! I never said it was your fault. I thought putting you two together was the perfect solution to the problem of how to get Lee the help he needed without putting Amanda at risk, but-"

"Right, because it's all about Lee and his precious Amanda. Everything in this place revolves around him, doesn't it? He's the golden boy who can do no wrong. He even skated by a treason charge a couple of years ago. When you offered to help me out, I thought maybe you were different than everyone else around here, but I guess you're just as drawn into his spell as everyone else is, especially the women around this place. But maybe you should remember that he's a married man now. I showed you the proof of it myself."

"You're jealous," she stated. "All this time I've been spending with you and you're still jealous of Lee. This is...this...it's just ridiculous. I mean, anyone with eyes can see that he only wants Amanda. What the hell do you think all the screaming was about downstairs in Billy's office? It was because Amanda got hurt on your watch. Now, I don't think-"

"You think I'm incompetent just like he does, don't you?"

"I never said that!"

"But you think it, don't you?"

"You know what? Forget this! If you're not going to give me a chance to explain and are just going to keep assuming you know what I'm thinking, I'm done here!" She flung the door open so hard that it banged against the wall behind it. She turned back to face him for a moment and spat angrily, "I trusted you to be true to your word and see more behind the mannequin like you said you did, but if you can't do that because you're so damn jealous of Lee, then you and me...we're done too."

"Fine by me!" he shouted back just in time to see her turn on her heel and storm out, hurrying back to the elevator.

As usual, she had to wait for the elevator. She had hoped that he would follow her as she had followed him when leaving Billy's office, but instead she cringed when she heard the slamming of his office door from down the corridor.

She let out a deep sigh wondering just how things had gone so wrong. Still, she had made him a promise regarding fieldwork and despite the fight they'd just had, she didn't break promises to people, especially those she cared about. _Maybe,_ a hopeful voice sounded in her head. _Maybe that will even show him that you're serious and you can work things out._


	2. Flashback Friday

That night, Francine sat in her car mulling over her situation. The fight with Beaman was weighing heavily on her mind. Of course, she'd learned later in the day that there had also been a major blow-up in a different case late last night after his class that had led to Beaman killing one of Brody's connections that Lee had been trying to get to and that was just one more reason that the two men were so pissed at each other, then with Amanda being injured in class on top of it, everything had blown up in Billy's office this morning.

The good thing was that if Beaman had become important enough to be working with the famous Scarecrow, other agents were now falling all over themselves to work with him – that was how he'd become involved with the fugitive warrant that had led to Kleiner's death in the first place - so she'd had no trouble today finding him another field assignment. But even after she'd worked it out with Billy to get him on the new assignment, he still hadn't budged. She'd left him several messages at his office and he'd finally called back insisting that she'd just been trying to appease her 'ex-lover" by getting him off the Brody case. She tried in vain to convince him that it just wasn't true and decided that if he was going to be that way about it, she wasn't going to waste any more time on it. Why should she when he stubbornly wanted to believe the worst and think that she'd only tried to intervene because she and Lee had once been lovers?

"Speaking of ex-lovers," she said aloud as she glanced toward the restaurant. She really wasn't sure what to do now that she was here. This wasn't how she'd planned on spending the evening. After she and Efraim had resolved their little spat of a few days ago over him leaving her place so abruptly, she'd been looking forward to her date with him tonight for days and had hoped that she could finally talk him into spending the night, but now that was all shot to hell and it seemed that he no longer wanted anything to do with her. For that matter she wasn't sure how much she wanted to continue seeing him anyway, especially since he was so hot and cold and had topped that off today by being a total horse's ass due to his jealousy of Lee.

She let out a dry chuckle wondering what Efraim would think if he knew where she was now; contemplating meeting with another ex-lover and one with whom she'd had a much more serious relationship. Hell, she'd almost married him, had bought the white dress, planned the perfect fairy-tale wedding with her mother's help and had believed they would settle down and live happily ever after. She couldn't help the flare of anger that arose in her as she reflected on those memories and how that too had all gone to hell.

"What am I doing here?" she questioned herself. Could she so easily jump from having made plans for a date with Beaman and seriously thinking of inviting him into her bed to now having dinner with her ex-fiancé like nothing ever happened? _But something had happened,_ she reminded herself. Jonathan had left her standing at the altar without a single word of explanation. What the hell was that all about and why was he suddenly calling her again five years later? Was he finally ready to offer her that explanation? Did he want to reconcile? He hadn't really been that specific on the phone; just that he wanted to know if she could have dinner with him.

Lee's words about telling him to crawl back under his rock kept ringing through her mind. Of course, she knew what Efraim would say about that; that she was still just harboring some sort of unrequited feelings for Lee if she kept hearing his voice in her head, but she couldn't help thinking that maybe her longtime friend was right; maybe she should have told Jonathan to take a flying leap. She had to admit that she wanted to, but she also wanted desperately to ask him the question that had been on her mind for five years; why had he left?

Of course, there was another part of her that had agreed to meet him because she wanted to be able to throw it in his face that she'd done just fine without him for all these years; she had a successful career, good friends and a man who really loved her in Efraim. The trouble with Efraim was that he was in love with an image that she wasn't sure she could live up to. She shook her head and scolded herself, "No. No bringing up Efraim." Aside from the fact that they weren't really on speaking terms at the moment, he'd been really sweet to her and he didn't deserve to be used as a pawn against her ex.

 _But doesn't Jonathan deserve some kind of payback for what he did to you_ , another voice sounded in her head. She chuckled softly and mused, "I should just walk in there, stay long enough to order a drink, pour it on his head and then walk out again." _But you won't,_ the more rational side of her brain chimed in. _You want to know why he left too much to leave it like that; why he broke your heart._

That thought led to her thinking of when she'd first hinted about Jonathan to Amanda that long-ago day when they were locked in a freezer together with her "People leave" comment. While she hadn't given the other woman the details at the time, they had talked about it since then during one of the many times she'd visited Amanda at home after she'd returned from California and was still healing. She even surprised herself by telling Amanda just how much she'd loved him and how much it had hurt when he just disappeared.

Of course, in her line of work, no one could ever disappear completely. If she'd wanted to, she was sure she could have easily tracked him down with all the Agency's resources at her fingertips, but at the time he'd left, she wasn't sure she wanted to. She'd been so angry and so hurt that she couldn't bear the thought of even looking at him again, but now, she wondered what might have happened if she had. Would they have reconciled or would she simply have given him a piece of her mind for bailing on their wedding? She blew out a long breath and glanced at her watch and realized she'd been sitting out here for a solid forty-five minutes.

She finally decided that since she'd wasted this much time on him, she might as well see it all the way through and find out what he wanted and try to get the answers to her questions and if he didn't give her a satisfactory answer, she could always go back to the idea of pouring a drink on his head. Taking one more deep breath to summon up her courage, she finally climbed out of her car and walked into the restaurant.

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While Francine was in her car agonizing over whether to keep her date with Jonathan, her original date for the night was waiting impatiently for her at her apartment. Beaman paced back and forth in front of her door, bouquet of purple orchids in hand, his attempt at an apology for being such an ass earlier in the day. After all, even after their fight, she'd still gone out on a limb for him with Billy to get him some more fieldwork, despite Lee Stetson's assertion that he was incompetent, so how could he really stay mad at her?

The trouble was that he'd already been here for forty minutes, had knocked on her door three times and had gotten no answer. He couldn't remember if he'd seen her car parked out front like normal either so decided to go back outside to check. Maybe she'd just stayed at the office later than planned.

As he walked out toward the front of her building, his thoughts of the office caused another more disturbing thought to cross his mind, maybe something was wrong. He knew that since Stetson no longer wanted him on the Brody case, especially after the incident with Kleiner, and he wouldn't allow Amanda anywhere near it, the guy still needed some backup. Maybe he'd somehow roped Francine into it and something had happened.

When he got outside and didn't see her car, he hurried to his own, set the bouquet down in the passenger seat and hurriedly dialed the Agency's number on his car phone. Once he completed his phone call and found that she'd left hours ago, his emotions were in a flurry. On the one hand, it was good that she appeared to be safe, but on the other, it appeared that he'd been stood up.

 _Maybe not,_ a worrying voice sounded in his head. _What if she were attacked at home?_ He swallowed hard at that thought. Even if she weren't working with Lee on the Brody case, she had still made a lot of enemies over the years, any one of whom might decide to come looking for payback. That thought propelled him into action as he sprinted back toward her apartment, fumbling for his lock pick kit, forgetting all about his apology flowers in his haste to see if she was alright.

He got to her door and began to work on the lock, cursing himself a few times for fumbling with the lock pick. "This is precisely why I need more field experience," he grumbled aloud, but then took a deep, calming breath and tried again, finally his shaking hands worked the lock open and he entered her apartment, calling her name.

Upon his initial assessment, nothing looked out of place. He walked further into the apartment toward her bedroom, calling her name again. Still no answer as he entered her private domain and saw the mess there, numerous articles of clothing strewn across the bed, her jewelry box open and clearly rifled through. Had it just been a random robbery? "No," he said aloud and shook his head. It couldn't be when her jewelry still appeared to be intact, just disheveled. Plus, the living room was in pristine condition.

"Where are you?" he questioned. Work was out because they said she'd already left for the day and her family lived 3000 miles away. Had she simply decided she didn't want to go out with him anymore after their fight? He remember how harshly she'd said they were done, but he'd believed it had just been said in the heat of the moment, like many things she said and that she couldn't have really meant it.

He meandered back into the living room forlornly as he tried to figure things out. He paused as a blinking light on her answering machine caught his attention. He'd left her a message earlier and wondered if she'd listened to it. If she hadn't, maybe that was why she wasn't there. Maybe there was still hope that it was all just a misunderstanding.

He pressed the play button and listened to his own message which was still recorded as a new one, so clearly she _hadn't_ heard it. That lifted his spirits a bit, but they soon sank again as an older message from earlier in the day began to play. "Who's Jonathan?" he questioned. He wracked his brain trying to remember if Francine had ever mentioned him. He hung his head sadly as he heard more than he wanted to. It was clear from the message that whoever this guy was, he had also expected to be seeing Francine tonight.

Knowing all he needed to know, he quickly fiddled with the machine until he'd erased his own message. Now that she'd blown him off for someone else, the last thing he needed was for her to hear how desperate he'd sounded on the phone about wanting to make amends. That task completed, he hurried out of the apartment, making sure to lock it behind him so she'd never know he'd ever been there.

Leaning against the passenger side of his car looking in, he stared at the vase of flowers he'd left in the seat. Unable to stand the way they taunted him, he reached inside the open window to pick it up, and flung it with all his might across the street where it landed with a resounding crash as shards of glass flew across the sidewalk. While it had been satisfying to see the vase shatter into tiny pieces, it had done nothing to lift the heaviness in his heart as he trudged back to driver's side of his car and sank wearily down into his seat, slamming the door behind him.

He leaned his head against the steering wheel, wondering just how it had all gone so wrong. Just when he thought he'd begun to get through to her, he had to blow it by being a jerk and now she was out with someone else. He lifted his head up just in time to see her car pull up in front of the building and it was clear that she wasn't alone when another car pulled up right behind her. Hunkering down, he watched in stunned silence as they got out of their respective vehicles and greeted each other affectionately before walking toward her apartment building. As quickly as he could, he started his own car, threw it into reverse and backed away in the hopes that she wouldn't see him. He executed a three-point turn to get out of the line of sight of her building and as he did, he could have sworn he saw Stetson slowly rounding the corner in an Agency car, but he didn't care. He had to get the hell out of there and away from her and whoever her new lover was.


End file.
